Tuesday, December 04, 2012

It’s official: the health care law will unduly stick it to young Americans by making them pay far higher premiums starting January 1, 2014.[1] New rules announced this month are even worse than expected when it comes to shoveling an unfair burden onto our nation’s youth. Moreover, they also perversely increase the incentives of young people to remain uninsured.

The newly announced rules limit insurers to charge their oldest customers no more than three times as much as younger ones. As shown in the following chart based on estimates by international management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, the rule will force insurers to hike rates for 18- to 24-year-olds by 45 percent even as rates for those 60 and older drop by 13 percent in most states.[2] That means a 22-year-old waitress paying $2,068 for her health insurance will have to fork over $3,000 when Obamacare takes effect.[3] And these figures even underestimate the actual impact…